Yi Yi (Criterion Collection)

With the runaway international acclaim of this film, Taiwanese director Edward Yang could no longer be called Asian cinema's best-kept secret. Yi Yi swiftly follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Whether chronicling middle-aged father NJ's tenuous flirtations with an old flame or precocious young son Yang-Yang's attempts at capturing reality with his beloved camera, Yang imbues every gorgeous frame with a deft, humane clarity. Warm, sprawling, and dazzling, this intimate epic is one of the undisputed masterworks of the new century.